7 Mistakes New Moms Make

All parents make mistakes. Don’t believe it? Just think about your own parents. You will no doubt come up with a laundry list of things they did wrong.

If you know the 7 most common parenting mistakes, maybe you can keep from making them yourself. So here they are, along with tips to help you avoid making them.

1. Panicking over anything and everything. Many new parents have overblown physical reactions to spitting up, vomiting, and other things a baby does.

Parents can waste the entire first year of their baby’s life by worrying about the small stuff. Is he having too many bowel movements or too few? Is she spitting up too much? Is she getting enough to eat or too little? Does he cry too much or not enough? Any of that sound familiar to you?

This worry gets in the way of being spontaneous and enjoying your infant’s first year of life. Babies are far more resilient than we give them credit for.

2. Not letting your infant cry it out. We, as parents, think our job is to make sure the baby is not crying. That’s because we associate crying with the fact that we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it.

Babies are designed to cry. They can be perfectly diapered and fed and still cry like you are pulling an arm off. Because that’s the way babies communicate. It doesn’t mean you can’t console or cuddle them.

3. Buying too many newborn diapers. Babies grow so much faster than you realize that it’s all too easy to have stacks of unused newborn diapers even after your baby has entered the next stage.

4. Taking advice that goes against your gut. That advice to ignore that weird rash or to rub rum on baby’s gums or to do some other thing you think just doesn’t seem right, well, it probably isn’t.

It doesn’t matter if you’re afraid of offending someone or if that person is supposed to know better than you — you’re the mom. Trust your instincts.

5. Comparing your baby to your friend’s. Your pal’s kid might be crawling and cruising, while your baby is still figuring out how to roll back to his stomach, but every kid really does tackle milestones at his own pace.

As long as baby’s pediatrician says baby is progressing normally, it’s not worth sweating over.

6. Buying a designer diaper bag. It may look great, but when you try to fit diapers, wipes, toys, snacks, and a whole lot more into it, you realize you should have gone with a bag with more space inside.

7. Putting yourself last. Making time for yourself after your baby is born is a necessity, not an indulgence.

The happier you are, the better a parent you will be.

If you find these 7 tips useful please share it with your friends so they can be loving and successful parents.